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Japan’s Tabikul helps you arrange travel itineraries for new destinations

Junya Mori Junya Mori
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See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based Grood, the startup best known for its crowdsourcing platform for voice actors, announced today that it has launched a new platform called Tabikul. This service helps you arrange travel itineraries by capitalizing on crowdsourced information. Based on your request, crowdsourced users living in certain destinations will help you arrange a travel itinerary. You can select your preference for mode of transportation or accommodations from five options, depending on your price requirements. You can receive proposals from crowdsourced users in 72 hours from the submission of your request, and even can ask for minor changes by interacting over the platform. If you like the proposed itinerary, you can order the tickets needed on the website, without having to go to another booking site. When you order, the user who arranged your itinerary can receive 10,000 yen (about $100) as a reward from the platform. At the time of launch, Tabikul is still limited to accepting travel itinerary requests to France, the UK, and Italy. They plan to expand it as they acquire more crowdsourced users from other regions.

tabikul_featuredimage

See the original story in Japanese.

Tokyo-based Grood, the startup best known for its crowdsourcing platform for voice actors, announced today that it has launched a new platform called Tabikul. This service helps you arrange travel itineraries by capitalizing on crowdsourced information.

Based on your request, crowdsourced users living in certain destinations will help you arrange a travel itinerary. You can select your preference for mode of transportation or accommodations from five options, depending on your price requirements. You can receive proposals from crowdsourced users in 72 hours from the submission of your request, and even can ask for minor changes by interacting over the platform.

tabikul-itinerary

If you like the proposed itinerary, you can order the tickets needed on the website, without having to go to another booking site. When you order, the user who arranged your itinerary can receive 10,000 yen (about $100) as a reward from the platform.

At the time of launch, Tabikul is still limited to accepting travel itinerary requests to France, the UK, and Italy. They plan to expand it as they acquire more crowdsourced users from other regions.

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Animal Buzz: Japanese startup launches website for viral animal videos

Junya Mori Junya Mori
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See the original article in Japanese On the Japanese edition of The Bridge, we recently reported about the launch of video-curation site Dropout. It follows the same sort of viral media strategy as Upworthy, a trend currently drawing attention in Japan as a new style of web media. And now Grood, the Japanese startup behind the voice crowdsourcing service Voip, has launched a viral media site called Animal Buzz, specializing in animal-related content. Yuuya Haraguchi, the CEO of Grood, said he decided to launch Animal Buzz since he thought the idea had much potential and possibilities to create positive business synergies in the future. He added: I think there are a few things very important concerning viral media. For example, if the title and the thumbnail image has enough impact to catch viewers’ attention, it has a better chance of being shared often as long as the content drives people to share and the topic is based on universal interests. Viral media is a field quite easy for many businesses to enter. In Japan, six viral media focused sites have been already released. I think that the number will grow even more. Narrowing the theme is important when it comes…

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See the original article in Japanese

On the Japanese edition of The Bridge, we recently reported about the launch of video-curation site Dropout. It follows the same sort of viral media strategy as Upworthy, a trend currently drawing attention in Japan as a new style of web media. And now Grood, the Japanese startup behind the voice crowdsourcing service Voip, has launched a viral media site called Animal Buzz, specializing in animal-related content.

Yuuya Haraguchi, the CEO of Grood, said he decided to launch Animal Buzz since he thought the idea had much potential and possibilities to create positive business synergies in the future. He added:

I think there are a few things very important concerning viral media. For example, if the title and the thumbnail image has enough impact to catch viewers’ attention, it has a better chance of being shared often as long as the content drives people to share and the topic is based on universal interests.

Viral media is a field quite easy for many businesses to enter. In Japan, six viral media focused sites have been already released. I think that the number will grow even more. Narrowing the theme is important when it comes to launching viral media on your own. After I conducted a survey, I decided to go for with animal-focused media based on three reasons: 1) animal-related content is very popular when it comes to video, 2) a lot of people share such content with others, and 3) this content is relaxing and fun.

Animal Buzz aims to achieve 10 million page views per month within a half year.

animal buzzの映像たち

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Japanese voice-acting service adds new languages, announces investment

Junya Mori Junya Mori
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See the original story in Japanese. Voip is a crowdsourcing service for voice-acting work. Since its launch back in January, it has acquired more than 1,500 registered actors in partnership with actor agencies and vocational schools. The startup behind the service is called Grood, and it is trying to provide an easy way to fulfill voice acting jobs in areas like social game development or media production. The startup announced yesterday that it has added foreign-language voice acting to its menu. Available languages now include English, Mandarin, French, and Italian. To receive orders for narration jobs in foreign languages, the startup has partnered with some agencies outside Japan. With the launch of its foreign-language narration service, the startup plans to extend its customer base into business sectors such as education, publishing, and translation. Voip also announced on Friday that it has received an undisclosed (small) amount of an investment from East Ventures. This follows the previous funding from Incubate Fund back in March of 2012. The startup’s CEO Yuya Haraguchi further explains: Our first target is smartphone app/game developers, and the education sector follows. With our inclusion of foreign languages, we expect app developers or publishing companies expanding globally choose…

microphone
Photo by sparetomato.

See the original story in Japanese.

Voip is a crowdsourcing service for voice-acting work. Since its launch back in January, it has acquired more than 1,500 registered actors in partnership with actor agencies and vocational schools. The startup behind the service is called Grood, and it is trying to provide an easy way to fulfill voice acting jobs in areas like social game development or media production.

The startup announced yesterday that it has added foreign-language voice acting to its menu. Available languages now include English, Mandarin, French, and Italian. To receive orders for narration jobs in foreign languages, the startup has partnered with some agencies outside Japan. With the launch of its foreign-language narration service, the startup plans to extend its customer base into business sectors such as education, publishing, and translation.

Voip also announced on Friday that it has received an undisclosed (small) amount of an investment from East Ventures. This follows the previous funding from Incubate Fund back in March of 2012.

The startup’s CEO Yuya Haraguchi further explains:

Our first target is smartphone app/game developers, and the education sector follows. With our inclusion of foreign languages, we expect app developers or publishing companies expanding globally choose us when developing their content.

For narration orders of consisting of less than 9,000 words, they will deliver within three business days of order. They also have a sort of quality assurance system, where you can ask them to re-do the recording until you’re satisfied with the quality of the outcome.

They will set up a card payment feature on the website soon, and they are also planning to launch new services like translation and proof-reading by native speakers.

Some of our readers may recall that we recently interviewed Ryota Ichioka, the CEO of illustration-focused crowdsoucing service MugenUp. Unlike existing crowdsourcing sites for general purposes, these services typically standardize the ordering process and visualize the skills of crowdsouced workers. This makes things more convenient for both clients and workers.

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Meet the Japanese startup aspiring to bring new voices to your games

Junya Mori Junya Mori
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See original story in Japanese. The high penetration of smartphone and tablet devices has made it a lot easier to enjoy rich visual and audio content. But from the point of view of game developers, it can be incredibly tough to differentiate your works from others, as great artwork and illustrations alone might not be enough. Many of them are trying to improve the sound of their games as well, in order to improve their content offerings. Tokyo-based startup, Grood, has recently introduced an online service for voice acting jobs called Voip. The startup won the top prize at Incubate Camp, a demo event held by local startup accelerator Incubate Fund last March. The startup is also known for its smartphone smash-hit app 全国告白白書 (or literally ‘All-Japan Love Confession Whitepaper’) which allows users to experience virtual love confessions to beautiful girls on the app. Voip has partnered with voice actor agencies and schools nationwide, and has enlisted more than 450 actors and actresses. By taking advantage of the country’s largest such network of this kind, the startup provides a large base from which social games or MMORPG developers can source quality voice actors. Prior to placing an order, a game…

See original story in Japanese.

voip-300x240

The high penetration of smartphone and tablet devices has made it a lot easier to enjoy rich visual and audio content. But from the point of view of game developers, it can be incredibly tough to differentiate your works from others, as great artwork and illustrations alone might not be enough. Many of them are trying to improve the sound of their games as well, in order to improve their content offerings.

Tokyo-based startup, Grood, has recently introduced an online service for voice acting jobs called Voip. The startup won the top prize at Incubate Camp, a demo event held by local startup accelerator Incubate Fund last March. The startup is also known for its smartphone smash-hit app 全国告白白書 (or literally ‘All-Japan Love Confession Whitepaper’) which allows users to experience virtual love confessions to beautiful girls on the app.

Voip has partnered with voice actor agencies and schools nationwide, and has enlisted more than 450 actors and actresses. By taking advantage of the country’s largest such network of this kind, the startup provides a large base from which social games or MMORPG developers can source quality voice actors.

Prior to placing an order, a game developer can ask an actor or actress to read a script as a sort of audition. When the developer chooses their favored actor, that person will then be notified about the job details. The actors can choose the work that they really want, and the client can choose from the best among all audio pieces that actors have recorded and submitted.

voip_screenshot

Although there appears to be more overall demand for quality voice-acting these days, notable voice actors and actresses frequently featured on TV or in well-known anime charge very high guarantee fees for their performance, and that is likely beyond the reach of most social game developers.

There are tens of thousands of voice actors in Japan, but only a fraction of them can make a living without doing other work on the side. The industry is very much seniority-based, and younger actors find it hard to survive even if they are popular.

So this service is a natural fit for voice actors in need of work and social game developers who are in need of quality performances. One job on the site has received 213 applications within 10 days of being published, which is a very impressive total.

Voip is currently working on some projects for Pokelabo, a well-known social game developer also backed by Incubate Fund.

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